A Thirsty Fish
by nezstereo
Summary: I do not grow weary of you. Don't grow weary of being compassionate towards me! Sarah finds herself missing the Goblin King, and ends up wishing him to her.


AN: I recently re-discovered Labyrinth and how awesome it is (or rather, how awesome David Bowie is cough), so...deviating from my normal status of lurking in the Sweeney Todd section, I'm writing this to satisfy my whirring machine of a brain. Maybe it will shut up now.

It's inspired by a poem by my favorite poet, Rumi. It is called "A Thirsty Fish", hence the random sounding title. Naturally, because of its Zen-like nature, I had to make my writing compliment and reflect the poem. Enjoy!

* * *

_I don't get tired of you. Don't grow weary  
of being compassionate toward me!_

_All this thirst equipment  
must surely be tired of me,  
the water jar, the water carrier._

I have a thirsty fish in me  
that can never find enough  
of what it's thirsty for!

It was a strange thing, Jareth thought. To be one thing one moment, and then another thing the next. The Goblin King was used to such transformations when they involved magic, of course: his shift into owl-form, the rapid disappearing of one place, and the lightning fast appearance of another.

But he hadn't calculated

anticipated

expected

to despise the young girl running his labyrinth one moment, and then, gazing into helpless green eyes, find himself unable to stop his rapid heartbeat.

Oh, loving her was certainly contrary of him. He was usually so set in his ways, stubborn and unmoving. But she had swirled about in the rippling ballroom, pleading, _needing _him, and something about her, so utterly alone, with no-one to recognize in a place of strange people and stranger things, had made him want, so badly, to hold her hand and assure her of his presence.

'I will protect you,' he wanted to tell her. 'I will sweep you into the sky and keep you safe.'

But of course, he couldn't speak to her. Too late, he thought, as she shattered the dream like glass, leaving him behind in a ripple of masked dancers.

The perfect analogy:

She wandered, confused, through his maze, he mocked her. Suddenly having a change of heart, he found himself in love, but it is not enough. Not enough, too late. She breaks the crystalline perfection of his momentary sense of being _needed_, because it's too late, she has to save her brother, and he has to fulfill his duty as keeper of the realm. He cannot change the rules; time runs out, as it always will. No matter how he rearranges it, no matter how time is altered, he cannot alter Sarah. He cannot even begin to change her heart, her mind.

He holds a hand to his chest ten years later, feeling his pulse increase at the thought of her. Hating the cruel irony of his love.

* * *

_Show me the way to the ocean!  
Break these half-measures,  
these small containers._

All this fantasy  
and grief.

Let my house be drowned in the wave  
that rose last night out of the courtyard  
hidden in the center of my chest.

Sarah walks jauntily through Central Park despite the biting cold, on a weekend journey into the city in search of birthday present for her little brother, who is turning ten in a week.

The scarf looped around her neck whips in the autumn wind, and she pauses, watching the orange

yellow

red spectrum of leaves swirling about her feet.

She is overcome with sudden nostalgia, swept away by the feeling of excitement and determination she felt when she walked the outer wall of _his_ labyrinth, the crunch of autumn leaves under her sneaker pleasant to her ears, despite the gravity of her quest.

He haunts her dreams, whispering to her, begging for her to _fear me, love me_, and he needn't ask, or plead, because she already fears him, already loves him. She first didn't like to believe the feeling speaking his name gave her: chills, shivers, increased heartbeat, flushed cheeks. Writing it off as a teenage fantasy, a simple attraction, she ignored the swish of her stomach, the trouble breathing when she murmured the name.

_Jareth._

It was in itself poetic, his name. Rolling off her tongue, floating about the air, caressing.

Crunching a leaf under the heel of her boot, almost furious at the ease with which he distracts her, even when he's no longer present, she reminds herself of her intentions. Putting him in the back of her mind for later, she resumes her walk through the walkways of the park, bedecked in its fall colors.

This isn't to say that loving him interferes with her instinctual distrust of him. He's selfish, she tells herself. Stubborn, unmoving, a horrible loser, a--

But his eyes as she told him he _had no power over her, _they were so pained, his face full of terror, for the first time, afraid to lose what he only just discovered. So tragically resigned to his fate, knowing before she spoke the words that she could not give in, would not give in, and he could not win her, not then, not ever. She spoke the words, the crystal shattered, and she can swear she heard his heart breaking into rapturous pieces like a smashing glass; orchestral dischord, so sad and so beautiful. And this thought, these tiny, nagging thoughts are what make her toss and turn, make her dreaming-self believe every promise her dream King whispers to her as he runs a hand lovingly across her cheek...

The park bustles with only dedicated joggers and dogwalkers, the early morning chill seeping through her coat, the grey sky endlessly stretching out above her. And she wishes desperately to be unlonely, to undo this sad longing she has for him. To play the game, now that she is older, now that she knows the rules, knows her heart better.

Arms folded to ward off the whispering breeze of winter, Sarah speaks to the wind:

"I wish I could see you again."

* * *

_Joeseph fell like the moon into my well.  
The harvest I expected washed away.  
But no matter._

A fire has risen above my tombstone hat.  
I don't want learning, or dignity,  
or respectability.

I want this music and this dawn,  
and the warmth of your cheek against mine.

"Hello, Sarah," the voice says to her, silky smooth, but not able to conceal the tone of trembling.

She whirls about and there he is. Her heart thumps a rhythm in her chest, an insisting beat telling her to kiss his lips, to whisper into his ear that he's ruined all the other men for her with his silly smiles and wicked ways. To thread hands in his hair, and feel so loved, so protected, just as she does in her dreams.

But...it is only that: a dream.

He is still cold, still cruel (so cruel...). The man she has imagined is not really the Goblin King, no fantasy can ever quite measure up to the actual thing, real, but without his usual sharp edge, the glint of confidence absent from his icy eyes.

Jareth folds his hands in his lap, pursing his lips in a tight, angry smile. Expecting her to gloat, to yell at him, to do something other stand there, gaping at him like a fish in the middle of Central Park.

"Well?"

She can't speak or move or do anything at all except stare in disbelief.

Dressed in civilian clothing, his hair is still platinum, a wild mane flickering gently in the wind about them, the rush rush rush of leaves echoing their dancing thoughts.

"Well," she stammers. "Well, what?"

"You summoned me here," he replies tersely. "I expect there's some sort of reason? If not, I'll simply be leaving..."

His form seems to shimmer at its edges, his face fading, but she reaches out and grabs his hand.

"Wait."

He does so. Frozen stiff at her touch, he once again takes shape in her world, looking strange against the backdrop of New York City in the distance. Grey eyes meet grey skies, and he gives her a look of hurt, undisguised.

"It's been nearly eleven years," he begins quietly. "I don't understand why you must add salt to our wounds. You won, yes. You defeated me, and walked free." The air around him feels heavy with despair. She can feel his regret, radiating into his hand, and realizes she feels regret too. Things had to be in the labyrinth, things were done just so during her time there.

But they are in no maze no except the one they've set for themselves.

"Can you not simply leave the past be, silly girl?"

It's a hiss, venomous, but weakly so, the hostility failing to mask the strain in his tone. She grips his hand tighter, and whispers back:

"No." A breath from them both, in sequence, in tune, as if they have always been taking in air at the exact same moment as the other. "I can't."

He wrenches his hands away, catching her shoulders in a grip as he lightly shakes her.

"Why?" It's drawn out, so full of love and hate and longing. "Why can't you simply leave me be? I am alone, you're nowhere near me, and yet..."

His hand runs down her cheek, fingers dance across her lips. His look is of tenderness, of bitter recollection.

"...I cannot stop thinking of you, Sarah. But the business of thinking of you inevitably brings me into one of my moods. You are insistent and irritating to me even in absence. My heart...hurts for you. I cannot have you. But I would rather feel all of that than see you again, if being something to you is an impossibility."

There's a silence as he inhales deeply, the cold air seeming to refresh him. Letting go of her suddenly as if being scalded, he runs a hand through his hair and sighs, distraught. Turning his back to her, as if to compose himself, she feels desperate. Sarah can't lose him now, not when he's just in reach.

"I can't let go of the labyrinth," she tells him, wanting to touch him again, missing his warmth. The emptiness he left behind is staggering. "I couldn't do that; I'd let go of you."

His eyes dart briefly to her figure in the periphery of his vision, then away again, disbelieving.

She wraps her arms about his middle, clinging to him. Reveling in his smell (like peaches), feeling suddenly, instantly as if she was where she was supposed to be.

"We played our parts in the fairytale, Jareth. But that was a long time ago. I did what I had to do, and you did what you felt you had to do...I understand that now. We're not playing a game, we're not enemies this time, and there's no rules."

He can feel her tremble, and his heart breaks a second time as she begins to cry into his coat.

"Stay," she tells him. "I didn't stay for you, I couldn't, but...stay for me."

Roles reversed, her begging him to love

to fear

to need.

Turning about, he envelopes her in his arms without another word, no longer able to bear it, thinking that this must be what completion is:

to feel utterly and completely forgiven, to be given what he wanted when he thought he could never have it. To hold her, to love her, free of restrictions, free of the presumption that she'd never love him back.

He kisses her in the cold fall air, thumbs brushing the hot tears from her cheeks, and in the in-between breaths they take, it is as if they are getting lighter. The feeling of being torn down the middle vanishing, being sewn back together again. Inevitably falling into one another once more, his lips on hers, a resounding _yes_.

I'll stay (he pulls her closer).

I'll stay (hands in her hair, loving the feeling).

I'll stay (kissing her forehead, as she sniffles, embarrassed to have cried).

* * *

_The grief-armies assemble,  
but I'm not going with them._

That is how it always is  
when I finish a poem.

A great silence overcomes me,  
and I wonder why I ever thought  
to use language.

They walk down the park's pathway with her arm linked in his, a new feeling.

Their elbows bend just precisely so that her left slides exactly into his right.

A perfect fit.

* * *

AN: And that's that.

Please review, I'd love to know what you thought of it.


End file.
